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Columbus State Community College is considering raising tuition for in-state students by 5.4
percent — the highest amount allowed under a state cap — starting next summer.

Campus officials say they need the extra money to make up for a larger-than-expected drop in
enrollments associated with the switch to semesters, which could cause a shortfall of as much as
$16.9 million. The school also wants to continue to provide new services to help more students pass
their classes and graduate, they said.

It would be the second tuition increase in a row after six years of keeping costs flat from 2006
to 2011. It would be the largest increase since a 5.8 percent hike in 2005.

“It’s just incredible that we were able to hold the line as long as we did,” Columbus State
spokesman Will Kopp said yesterday.

Trustees at the two-year school are to discuss the proposal, which would raise in-state tuition
by $6.63 per credit hour to a little more than $129 per credit hour, at a committee meeting this
afternoon. For full-time students, that would equate to a $199 increase — from $3,679 to $3,878 —
for a full, two-semester school year. The board will vote on the increase at its meeting next
Thursday.

For the first time in six years, Columbus State students started paying more for classes this
fall when tuition rose 3.5 percent.

Under the state’s current two-year budget, community and technical colleges cannot increase
tuition more than $200 over what the school charged the previous year. The proposed 5.4 percent
tuition increase would be the maximum allowed under that cap, said Terri Gehr, Columbus State’s
senior vice president and chief financial officer.

After several years of explosive growth, enrollment at Columbus State dropped this year to
25,650 students — nearly 13 percent fewer than had been anticipated. And that was on top of coming
in 10 percent below projections for the summer. The school had grown to more than 30,000 students
in recent years, fueled by an increase in recent high-school graduates looking for bargains and
laid-off and under-employed workers in need of new job skills.

Colleges typically experience a temporary drop in enrollment when they move from quarters to
semesters as students adjust to a new academic calendar that starts a month earlier than they’re
used to. Columbus State had budgeted for a

5 percent decline long before the start of fall, and the campus immediately instituted several
cuts and cost-saving measures once it was clear that enrollment was going to drop dramatically,
Gehr said.

To reduce costs, Columbus State has put off filling positions, delayed replacing equipment,
reduced the budget to pay adjunct faculty members by $7.3 million and limited travel and conference
attendance. The school also is refinancing its debt, restructuring its employee health-care program
and offering early-retirement incentives to shave expenses, she said.

If the proposed increase is approved, Columbus State’s tuition would be the third-lowest among
Ohio’s 23 public, two-year schools and a good value compared with other schools, including Ohio
State, which costs $10,036 this school year, Gehr said. The increase also would be in line with the
average tuition hike at Columbus State from 2002 to mid-2006, when tuition rose between 3.9 percent
and 6.6 percent a year, she said.

But some students said that’s still too much money.

Many students can barely afford to pay for school now, said Marcus Coachman, an 18-year-old
computer-science major from Toledo. “They need to look for more cuts before squeezing students,” he
said.

VonTainia Edge, a 19-year-old Boston native, said she chose Columbus State because it was the
cheapest school she could find. “I worry that the increase is high enough that some students would
be priced right on out of college,” she said.